Tsar Vladimir Putin?

Russian president Vladimir Putin has been a mystery almost for everyone since moment of his election. He seemed to be a man with no past, inspired by the symbol of the new epoch, but deprived of historic roots. Research conducted by journalists from the Russian city of Tver has become a sensation. It was discovered that the parents of the Russian president came from the Kalininsky area of the Tver region.

The president’s family tree is not traced before Putin’s grandfather Spiridon Putin, who left Tver for St. Petersburg at the age of 15. Vladimir Putin’s grandfather was a serious, reserved man of immaculate honesty. Spiridon Putin became a good cook. He worked in fancy restaurants in St.Petersburg before the revolution of 1917. Later, he was invited to cook for Lenin himself. When Lenin passed away, Spiridon Putin started working at one of Stalin’s dachas. Putin’s grandfather managed to survive this horrid period of the Soviet history. When he retired, he lived and cooked at a holiday camp of the Communist Party. Vladimir Putin describes his grandfather as a man who liked remaining silent most of the time.

The researchers did not manage to trace the origin of this last name – Putin. The world-wide web knows only one Putin – Vladimir Vladimirovich, the Russian president. Therefore, using online search engines is completely worthless in this quest. No other scientists of history and no dictionary mention anything about the name Putin among tens of thousands of other names.

On the other hand, there has recently been a surprising fact discovered. Vladimir Putin looks like Prince Mikhail Tverskoy. They both are not tall, with little hair, and similar noses. Is Putin a descendant of the Tver prince? This hypothesis is gaining more and more support. The name Putin is not mentioned among the Russian names. This means that the name is of foreign origin.

The name Putin appeared recently, sometime in the middle of the 19th century. All Putins originally came from the Putin clan of the Tver region. Illegitimate offspring of noble families were often given shortened names. For example, Russian writer Pnin was an illegitimate son of Field Marshal Repnin. There have been many other such occasions: Betskoy instead of Trubetskoy and Gribov instead of Griboyedov. The new names of unofficial clan branches were formed by means of deduction: a syllable was simply taken out of the origional name.

A book on the Tver region mentions the name of Putyanin, a clan of Russian princes. This clan gave Russian many outstanding military leaders, as well as artists, politicians, and priests. This is one of the oldest clans in Russian history. If President Putin is a descendant of the Putyatin clan, this means that Vladimir Putin is related to nearly all the royal families of Europe.